Walpurgis
by GinnyRules
Summary: They sweep through the school with a dark pageantry, reigning unopposed. Feared and idolized in equal measure, they are the product of too much glamour, too much money, too much freedom, until the graduation bell tolls and ashes rain down as they are unleashed upon the land.


**A/N:** This piece is based on a series of microflash fics I posted on tumblr (link in my profile), springing from my exasperation with the notion that a time-displaced Hermione would enroll at Hogwarts with Tom Riddle and simply try to lie low (even though I've written that very scenario before). It is Tomione with some unrequited Tombrax. Possible trigger warning for some very brief mentions of non-con (unrelated to the pairings in the fic). It is mildly AU because I felt like taking some liberties with canon characters, but nothing major. And sorry not sorry, but yes it's a time travel fic, and the circumstance of the time travel is mostly irrelevant. She's there in the past, she's not getting back, and that's... yeah. You know the drill

* * *

_**WALPURGIS**_

_**by GR  
**_

I – _The Knights; toujours pur._

They sweep through the school with a dark pageantry, reigning unopposed. Feared and idolized in equal measure, they are the product of too much glamour, too much money, too much freedom, until the graduation bell tolls and ashes rain down as they are unleashed upon the land. Demons with angelic faces and hearts carved from ice. Tom Riddle, all obsidian darkness and poisoned charm; Abraxas Malfoy, pale cherub face slowly drifting into lines of cruelty, sitting on an empire of gold, ever battling the siren's call that draws him to one he cannot have; Rabastan Lestrange, silver tongue and honeyed sneer and a thirst for blood; Orion and Walburga Black, promised in marriage from infancy and desperate to destroy one another, he with sharp wits taking on the crooked bent of hate and she with thorns hiding among folds of satin; and the wild-haired, elusive enchantress who has stricken Riddle's fancy… Rushing headlong towards oblivion with liquor and lust and oaths sealed in blood. The world at their feet, they are ready to dance on its ruins. But the pendulum of fate swings the predator's gaze unto darker alleys still. Spurned knights wait out the frosts, devotion curdling and passion soured, drowning bitterness in secrets and flesh and wine behind closed doors while Riddle strives to bring his prey to heel. Suspicion runs rampant and betrayal is the drug of choice, and his keen-eyed plaything cannot seem to belong to any but herself. They are an unstoppable pair; Bonnie and Clyde for the wizarding age. The boundaries of magic are pushed, sending shockwaves through the fabric of time. The sand in the hourglass runs thin as cities under fire begin to rise, to bring the guillotine down on their tormentors. And yet, embattled, the Knights remain standing.

* * *

II – _A wild nobility; we are family._

May 1st, 1946

A preternatural, fiery light seeps through the splintered doorway.

They are coming. They are coming in, and they are possessed with the cool, thoughtless energy that accompanies righteous murder. It is a feeling Riddle knows well.

"Anti-Disapparition wards," says Hermione under her breath, her eyelids fluttering characteristically as she loses herself in deep thought. "Floo grates blocked. Wenlock's Seven Principles of Displacement—Portkeys can be tracked within a radius equal to that of the area vacated. No escape. We'll have to fall back to the upper levels."

"Brilliant fucking insight," Lestrange spits at her.

For a moment, Riddle is rather inclined to kill him.

He looks at Lestrange in disdain. "There are seven of us and fifty of them."

Abraxas arches a cynical eyebrow and Riddle knows that he understands. Hermione understands too, and her lips purse together in mingled exasperation and resignation. Black is poised like a statue in the corner with his fucking girlfriend, still and silent.

"_Meaning?_" Lestrange growls, and _oh_, he is pushing his luck.

"Meaning," Riddle says slowly, quietly, as his eyes—independent of his will, it seems—latch onto Hermione's, "they don't stand a chance."

Abraxas chuckles darkly and Hermione sets her jaw. She is determined. Between the _two_ of them, their attackers still would not stand a chance.

Riddle is seized by an all-consuming desire to dig his hands into her flesh and feel the beating of her heart and kiss her until she cannot breathe. When this is over and their foes are dead, he is going to do just that, and to hell with the rest of the world.

Riddle blasts the barricade open with a spell that sets the entire room ablaze. Then, with a final look back at Hermione, he walks leisurely out into the crowd that is chanting for his death. And he smiles.

* * *

January 3d, 1945

He first meets her in Hogsmeade, in a tightly packed bookstore in the heart of winter. She is shelving books and worrying her lower lip in an absent-minded way that suggests she is far, very far, in her mind. She is utterly unremarkable.

Riddle walks past her and directly to the rare books section, stopping when he is safely dissimulated behind the stacks. There is research to be undertaken. He has two Horcruxes already: a greater accomplishment than that attained by any other wizard in history. But he is far past the mere tedium of outdoing his predecessors. He must stretch the outer limits of magic, or else for what is he owed an empire, a crown?

This is how he first notices it: under cover of the hustle and bustle pervading Blishwick's Books & Tomes, she is casting _non-verbal_ Disillusionment charms on the books piled in her arms, one by one, so as to send them flying about the store. No more visible than a localized heat haze, the books shelve themselves with military precision while her hand twitches in her pocket, undoubtedly clenched around her wand.

She is hardly even paying attention to her work. Her gaze drifts repeatedly over to the matronly witch behind the front counter, the one with the severe eyes sunken in folds of wrinkles yet still unpleasantly alert. No doubt the old hag has warned her employees to perform their work by hand so as not to risk books colliding with customers. Riddle's nostrils flare. Disillusionment charms have been common practice for little over five years at the most. He is not aware that many full-grown wizards have mastered them, let alone acquired the ability to perform them non-verbally. He himself has been able to perform them for months, of course. But the ease with which this mere shopkeeper is casting the spell...

A vista of possibilities opens up before him. He is already rehearsing the process of approaching her in his head. If she is a Pureblood, he will be able to recruit her easily. If she is not... he has another purpose in mind for her altogether.

His wand has been straining uncomfortably of late, itching to unleash the magic he cannot perform regularly at Hogwarts because of that watchful old fool Dumbledore. He can hear her screams already, a welcome symphony to his ears, so dulled by the mundane chatter of his daily life.

Hair smoothed into place, features schooled in a humble smile. It is time to introduce himself.

"Excuse me," Riddle inquires quietly, striding over and losing himself in the role of the diminished orphan he has grown so accustomed to.

She glances up at him and her eyes widen by a fraction. He is used to this: it is the inexplicable effect his hated father's face has upon people. What he does not expect is the tightness in her mouth and the mistrust in her gaze. She smiles. It does not touch her eyes.

"Yes?" she says.

"I was wondering if you might have any titles by Emeritus Dagworth?"

"Third aisle, three quarters of the way down, second shelf from the bottom," she recites at once. "But if you're looking for potion-making tips I would suggest the Brewer's Quarterly. It's much more up to date. Miranda MacDougall's article on derivative antidotes in the most recent publication was a groundbreaking piece."

Riddle keeps a frown from creasing his brow with some effort. He has been meaning to acquire that title for several weeks.

"I daresay they aren't paying you enough," he tells her. He waits for her cheeks to colour, easy and prim like all the rest, but instead she merely looks worn down. Still, her eyes linger on his features, the lines of his body, a moment too long.

As they should. This is a positive development.

She forces a chuckle and it is brittle and he feels a momentary urge to strike, to hurt her, for her insincerity. Oh, he will be returning to this shop to find out more about where she has come from, that much is certain. He has held her gaze and he feels her fold, not so easily as all the others but still pliable enough.

"I don't work here," she says, softening a little. He edges closer to her quite naturally, and she seems to relax even further.

"I took an assignment here because my boss requested it," she goes on. "I work in Diagon Alley." She frowns. "I didn't realize this was a Hogsmeade weekend for Hogwarts students."

"Seventh years are permitted to come into the village any time they like."

She looks unaccountably surprised. Riddle regards her carefully: the softness in her face, her delicate stature; she cannot yet be twenty.

"You do not attend school yourself?" he asks with just the right amount of casual disinterest.

"I graduated," she answers a little too quickly. There is a pained quirk to her mouth as she says it, and so he knows she is lying.

He allows a quiet smile to play across his face again. "And decided to follow an illustrious career as a shopkeeper?"

Her answering smile is frustratingly guarded. He feels a surge of white-hot anger. Memories of his first encounter with Dumbledore surface—the realization that not everyone could be bent to his will.

This girl, however, with her deceptively plain features and startling magical ability... This girl will not stand up to him for long. There are many ways to get what he wants, each more entertaining than the next. But not here, in the middle of this crowded shop. He can find her later. He has all the time in the world.

"Thank you for the tip," Riddle says, offering her a slight bow. She turns to leave. "Oh—I didn't quite catch your name."

"Romilda Vane."

A familiar name. Not necessarily a Pureblood, but not a Mudblood either. Good.

"A pleasure to meet you, miss Vane," he says. "I'm Tom Riddle."

Her entire body goes rigid and for the space of a heartbeat her eyes fill with sheer panic. Has word of his exploits over the summer already spread so far? Then she masters herself and nods at him, looking as though she cannot get away fast enough.

Excellent.

* * *

February 20th, 1945

The tedium of his classmates' chatter during Hogwarts lessons is surpassed only by the mindless languor of Slughorn's dinner parties. Predictable. Unvarying. Yet necessary. He plays them all like strings on a violin. Slughorn's fat fingers twitch like pale spiders in a bag of crystallized pineapple, glistening and coated in sugar. Orion and Walburga sit groping one another brutally in the shadows. Lestrange's voice rises with each glassful of mead. Abraxas is smoking calmly by the fireplace, watching. Watching Riddle, like always, with that wistful look in his eyes.

Riddle thinks of the girl in the bookshop. His skin crawls with rage every time he thinks of it, and he plays unconsciously with his ring. She has proved nearly impossible to locate. He had learned her name, where she worked, and yet... nothing. He has pored through registries and found no record anywhere of a Romilda Vane this decade.

Why, on so little grounds for suspicion, would she have given him a false name?

Unsolved mysteries are not acceptable.

Riddle rakes a hand restlessly through his hair and crosses his long legs over the arm of his stuffed velvet armchair. Abraxas licks his lips.

"Tom, m'boy!" booms Slughorn, cutting into his reverie. "You simply must tell me more about your plans for your upcoming graduation! You've been most frustratingly tight-lipped about the whole thing."

He wags a reproving finger, and Riddle moves to take a seat by his side, easing into the old dutiful role with a bit more weariness than usual.

The atmosphere down in the dungeons later that evening is thick with scorn.

"M'boy, now, don't you go telling me you've no ministerial ambitions!" Lestrange recites in an admirable imitation of Slughorn's fondest manner. Riddle smiles indulgently and wonders how it would feel to curse Lestrange's tongue from his mouth and watch the blood spew from his lips.

"I swear to Merlin the table rises six inches every time Slughorn sets eyes on you, Tom," Walburga says in that spiteful, grating voice of hers. She has her back turned on Orion, and so she does not notice the cold sneer of disdain he levels at her. Now, there will be a decidedly unfortunate marriage. But the Pureblood customs about intermarriage are as unwavering as they are bizarre, it seems.

"He must think if you're made Minister he'll have an in directly to the Wizengamot," Lestrange continues.

"How disappointing for him," Abraxas says softly. His movements are uncoordinated. He is a little drunk. It had better not become a habit, because Riddle has no intention of putting up with that sort of distraction. He needs Abraxas. He needs his _money_.

A gaggle of fifth years come tumbling into the common room and stop short at the sight of Riddle and his group. The Knights of Walpurgis—a bit quaint, but the name has clout—are widely understood to be in unquestioned control of the school. The dungeons are their haunting grounds, not to be intruded upon. The newcomers are two girls and a boy, and Riddle catalogues their names, filing them away for the future.

Druella Rosier. Lucretia Selwyn. Marcus Shafiq.

"Oh—sorry!" Lucretia giggles. "We were just out for a—a bit of a..."

Her voice trails off under Abraxas's stern gaze.

"Curfew was three hours ago," he says coldly. "I suggest you get to your dormitories. I'd hate to have to start handing out detentions."

"Would you care to show us the way?" Lucretia asks brazenly, batting her lashes at Riddle.

It seems to have become something of a sport among the elder Slytherin girls to try to get Riddle alone. He gives in on occasion, just often enough to keep the gossip to a minimum, or when he is feeling especially bored. He has even indulged Abraxas once or twice, to keep him motivated. But at present he is not in the mood. He is much too concerned with the girl in the bookshop.

"I trust after five years you won't find yourselves too hopelessly lost," he says.

The fifth years depart, shamefaced, and Riddle twitches his wand to extinguish the fireplace.

"About time to turn in, I think," he says.

"What?" Lestrange protests. "The party's only getting started—"

Riddle looks at him pointedly, and he falls silent at once.

They stand and walk side by side in the direction of the dormitories, leaving cold shadows behind.

* * *

April 30th, 1946

On the night before they are besieged by the accursed mob, he rents out the entirety of the Leaky Cauldron Inn with Abraxas's gold. He cares nothing at all for the privacy or the use of the shabby reception area. It is a calculated move, a show of power. And while the others toast in a suite upstairs, he lingers in the ballroom with Hermione. He leans quietly against the door frame while her fingers dance over the keys of the ancient grand piano. He recognizes the tune. He thinks in fact that he might have heard it long ago, at Wool's. His corrosive hatred of that place threatens to engulf him but then Hermione turns to look at him, and for the first time ever there is no fear or judgment in her eyes. She looks tired: tired of anger, of doubt, of pretending.

He crosses the space between them in five swift steps and wraps his arms around her waist. She sighs. Foolishly, he allows himself to indulge in the belief that it might be with contentment. He brushes his lips against the corner of her mouth, slowly, taking his time—he has all the time in the world, after all. He has always been in such a frenzied rush when it comes to her.

He slides his hands beneath her thighs, lifts her up onto the piano, and leans his head against her shoulder.

"It was me," she says abruptly, her warm breath brushing over his temple.

Riddle leans into her, considering the weight of her confession, and the punishment it should entail. Thinking of what it means.

"I know," he tells her.

She exhales shakily, not so much surprised as relieved by the weight lifted from her shoulders.

He kisses her in earnest, and he cannot know how and when exactly he has grown so dependent on her softness and her warmth. He does not want to know. It is enough to tangle his fingers in her hair and press his body flush against hers in the dancing light of the chandelier, for just one more night.

* * *

April 17th, 1945

He finds her at last in the Raven's Head pub, of all places. He has been roving the streets of London obsessively all through Easter break, beginning to resign himself to the unsavory notion that he might in fact never see her again. He had gone to Flourish & Blott's and been told that Romilda Vane resigned her post weeks ago. That evening he had punished Black to within an inch of his life for a minor trifle of a mistake, pouring every ounce of rage into the curse streaming from the end of his wand.

And now he happens upon her in Knockturn Alley purely by chance, looking thoroughly out of place in the grimy corner booth of a smoky pub. It is almost too good to be true.

He seizes two pints from the bar and strides up to her table, catching her gaze with relish. She is a rabbit in a snare.

"Miss Vane," he says, taking a seat a little too close to her and lifting her hand to brush his lips over her knuckles. "What chance to run into you this evening."

"Hello." Her voice is constricted. Interestingly, she is trying terribly hard to behave normally. She is a puzzle he cannot wait to solve, to break.

"Can I interest you in a drink?" He pushes one of the pints towards her.

She lifts the pint to her lips. Pretends to take a sip. Oh, she is going to make for a delightful new toy.

"I haven't poisoned it, Miss Vane," Riddle tells her lightly.

"I—Of course not. I'm just... not much of drinker."

"No? Neither am I, to own the truth. So tell me, then, what are you doing here?"

"The same as you, probably."

"Somehow I doubt that."

She offers him a forced smile and rises to leave, muttering, "Well, I really should get going..."

And just like that, he flips the switch.

"Oh, you aren't going anywhere," he says dangerously, whipping out his wand and laying it conspicuously on the table.

She shivers from head to toe and her eyes dart towards the exit, but she makes no move to defend herself. It is as though she knows there would be no point. It is as though she knows a great deal more about him than he is comfortable with.

No one in the pub has noticed their altercation, so he presses his advantage and leans closer to whisper in her ear, digging the point of his wand into her throat.

"Your name isn't Romilda Vane," he whispers. "And you aren't a shopkeeper. Now, you have exactly ten seconds to tell me the truth, or I have an inkling you know _exactly_ what happens next."

She is breathing very quickly. A dull flush is creeping up her neck, tinting her cheeks a delectable shade of pink. And she says, "No."

"_No?_"

"No. Never."

"Shame," Riddle sighs. "I thought you had more sense."

Just as he is about to drag her out she twists suddenly in his grip, bending his wrist painfully sideways and stomping on his foot. Pain is nothing to him, but the defiance is unacceptable. He sees red and blasts her back against the wall, keeping her pinned with magic in mid-air. There are screams throughout the pub but he swivels his wand around in a wide circle, silencing them all.

"Let's try that again, shall we?"

"I'm not telling you anything," she hisses.

Riddle slashes his wand and cuts a deep gash in her cheek. She bites her lip to stifle a gasp of pain and in her moment of distraction he delves into her mind. The Cruciatus curse would be more fun, but her screams might attract more unwanted intruders.

And then he is stunned, he is reeling, he is staggering back, because what is contained inside her head is more than what he could ever have dreamed. He cannot think, or move. He is rooted to the spot.

"You're going to let me go," she says, jolting him back to reality. Granger. Her name is Hermione Granger. "And you're not going to hurt these people."

She holds up a gold band that glints in the candlelight, and with an even greater shock Riddle recognizes his ring. He knows now why she twisted his wrist while escaping his grasp. And he knows that she knows exactly what the ring is.

She has her wand pointed at it.

Riddle summons the ring with a snarl and in the moment it takes him to catch it Granger has undone his enchantments and sprinted out of the pub. He catches sight of the hem of her robes as she Disapparates with a twist out in the cobbled alley.

It takes him nearly an hour to Obliviate everyone in the pub. By the time he is finished she is long gone.

* * *

III – _Shadows blink and laws will break._

June 21st, 1945

Though he will never admit it to anyone, Riddle's graduation is by far the grandest affair he has ever attended in his life. His classmates lurk in the back row, looking haughty and bored and far above it all. Black's average family dinner probably counts more servants than the Hogwarts banquet laid out before him.

"As you step forth into the world, we look on with pride knowing that you have learned the skills necessary to ensure that you prosper in your respective fields..."

As Dippet drones on and on about the treasure that is magical education, Riddle stands tall under the enchanted ceiling, trying to ignore the uncomfortable prickle of hundreds of eyes on the back of his head. And in the stillness of the moment his thoughts settle, as they have been doing alarmingly often, on Hermione Granger.

She has vanished. He would never have believed anyone could hide from him so effectively. There is little doubt that, had he been able to devote the entirety of his time to finding her, she would be in his possession by now. But there have been N.E.W.T.'s to get in his way, and he has developed a nearly obsessive need to devise increasingly secure protection for his Horcruxes.

When the speeches are at an end and the certificates handed out, his Knights stand around receiving congratulations from their families. Riddle watches, remembering to paste a mournful expression on his face whenever a Professor bothers to express their sympathy that his own family cannot be there to congratulate him. When Dumbledore nods solemnly at him from across the Great Hall he fantasizes about the flash of green that will someday extinguish the knowing glint in the old fool's eyes.

"Enjoying yourself?" Abraxas asks sardonically, sidling up behind him.

"When we've reformed this place, graduation will be conducted differently. Decidedly fewer Mudbloods, for one thing."

Abraxas's smile twists with savage amusement and Riddle marvels inwardly at the rampant stupidity that seems to possess his followers. From the very first, they have delivered their most powerful weapons right into his hands. It did not take him long upon arriving at Hogwarts to deduce how inflammatory an issue blood was to the old families. The issue suited him fine, given his wish to disassociate himself from his shameful stain of a father, and so he used his connection to Slytherin to wedge his way in. Each time he has escalated the degree of venom aimed at the Mudbloods that populate the other houses, his Knights have panted at his feet. It is too easy; everything is always too easy.

"Why don't we get out of here?" Abraxas suggests. There is a nervous edge to his voice, even after all this time.

"I have things to attend to." Riddle dismisses him with a wave of his hand. He intends to pay a final visit to his Room of Lost Things before he departs from the school for the last time.

Dippet's refusal to hire him on still chafes. But he will repay them, all of them, soon enough.

Abraxas stands by the Head table, looking pathetically bereft, as Riddle slips out of the Hall unnoticed.

A week later and the lot of them are rooming at the House of Black in London. Malfoy Manor is grander still, but Black's parents are elderly and more than a little touched in the head, and Orion has managed to land them in a closed ward at Saint Mungo's. Which leaves Grimmauld Place unsupervised, the ideal headquarters. Obscure aunts and uncles drop in from time to time to observe the state of Orion and Walburga's nightmare of a courtship, but Riddle is never present on these occasions. He has work to do at Borgin and Burkes, and even more importantly, he has a problematic, bushy-haired little girl to track down.

Of course, though it may be Black's house, Riddle is unquestionably in charge when he _is_ present.

He sets Lestrange and Abraxas to keeping an eye on the situation in Germany, where this farce of a _Dark Lord_, Grindelwald, is becoming far too brazen. Riddle has no idea why Dumbledore has not yet stepped in, and he is beginning to consider intervening himself. He will suffer no rivals.

Black remains behind to begin recruiting. Others will join them soon, once they have completed their studies: Macnair, Avery, Nott, Goyle. But until then, he could use some cannon fodder.

And then at last—at long last—he finds her.

* * *

May 1st, 1946

The sun has not yet risen. Hermione is asleep, curled up on the plush velvet sofa under a knitted blanket. Riddle watches her bare shoulders rise and fall in time with her breaths and feels he can never look at her long enough.

But their time is up. He stands and walks to his room, where he finds the documents he requested waiting for him, laid out by one of the newer Knights. He flips through them, eyeing photographs and letters and newspaper articles. A dull roar begins to build in his ears.

He can never allow this. He will tear London down brick by brick before he lets her do this.

He wakes the others, noting Zeller's disgraceful reluctance and deciding that perhaps the newcomer ought to suffer a little accident in the days' proceedings. They eat in silence down in the pub, Hermione excepted. The others appear to have little appetite, but Tom's is nonexistent. He is consumed with thoughts of the pictures in the file in his room.

Then they are ready, and there is nothing left to do but wait.

When the first crack of Apparition sounds out in the street, Walburga flinches and Orion snaps at her. Three more cracks follow, and then five others, and after that Riddle loses count.

The knocking begins. Hermione is serene and Abraxas quiet. Zeller squirms and Lestrange hits him soundly on the back of the head.

Cursed light flashes through the doorframe, and without pausing to think Riddle steps in front of Hermione, adopting a protective stance.

There is a tremendous bang as their assailants attempt to break inside, and Hermione speaks two words, almost too softly to be heard. He is certain she has not meant for him to hear, that she is speaking for herself. But he catches it all the same.

"I'm sorry," she says.

* * *

August 4th, 1945

He finds her while strolling through wizarding Hamburg. Her face is scowling at him from a wanted poster plastered to the wall of a Quidditch supplies shop. The reward is listed as five hundred Galleons.

With a little spilled blood but relatively few deaths, he picks up her trail. He is meant to be here to look in on Grindelwald's operation, but something tells him finding Hermione will be a step in the right direction.

She is staying in a continental hotel under the name Penelope Clearwater, which he assumes to be code for something sinister. He will have to pick it out of her head later.

To Riddle's dismay, when he breaks down her door she jumps immediately across the room to what turns out to be a predetermined Disapparition point. He barely manages to close his hand around her wrist before she twists, dragging them both into the suffocating bands of Apparition.

They come out in a crowded field, hidden behind a tree at the back of the assembly. At the center of it all two wizards are circling one another, one tall with a silvery beard, one lithe like a panther with a cruel set to his mouth.

"It's happening," says Hermione, staring at the dueling pair. She is transfixed just long enough for Riddle to recover himself and disarm her.

"You're in it pretty deep, Miss Granger. Five hundred Galleons... Did you storm the German Ministry?"

"Let go of me, don't you see what's going on?"

Riddle feels a stir of impatience override his excitement. "I'll just pull it out of your head, little girl. If you're wise you'll answer me and save yourself the trouble."

Her eyes blaze as she rounds on him. "I got in a spot of trouble with some German Aurors while helping Dumbledore with something."

"And what were you helping Albus Dumbledore with, exactly?"

"See for yourself. Don't you recognize what's happening? _That's Grindelwald._ This is when it happens. Dumbledore's about to defeat Grindelwald!"

There is a deafening crash followed by a burst of blinding light. Riddle and Hermione watch, awe-struck in spite of themselves and enjoying a brief reprieve from their struggle, as one of the most famous duels in history takes place before their eyes. Grindelwald and Dumbledore circle one another and blast curses of terrible power and the crowd shrieks and Riddle suppresses his reluctant admiration at the old fool's spellwork. Hermione is perfectly calm through it all, watching, rapt, as Dumbledore brings his rival to his knees and strikes him down. Riddle waits for the killing curse to come, but it never does. Of course not.

"I have to go," Hermione hisses when it is over, still breathless with awe. "I can't be spotted here. I can't be in the history books written about this, it would be disastrous!"

"You realize, of course, that I have no intention of letting you evade me again," Riddle replies.

"You don't understand—"

"I have your wand. So all _you_ need to understand is how to follow my orders from now on."

He twitches her wand before her eyes and closes his hand tighter around her arm, twisting them both into darkness once more.

* * *

September 9th, 1945

He is kissing Abraxas. He is also going over floor plans to various lesser wizarding banks in his head. Pinned between Abraxas and the wall, he has to admit that this inexplicably affectionate boy with the silver hair is rather good at what he does, and that his hands feel nice traveling down his back. He loses himself in it for a moment, in lips burning against his jaw and hands threading into his hair and pained moans washing over his skin.

Then he hears footsteps coming down the hall and pulls away, stepping deftly to the side and smoothing down his hair.

"What is it, my Lord?"

Abraxas has begun, unprompted, to call him "my Lord." It is gratifying, if predictable. Riddle gestures impatiently for him to sit down and cross his legs.

"New recruit," Walburga drawls, barging into the drawing room with her hair done up in a ridiculously enormous conflagration of pins and flowers. "Bloke by the name of Thurkell. Lestrange says we can put him in the little room on the second landing, and the Mudblood can sleep in the cellar."

Riddle strides over to her and lifts her chin with one finger.

"The Mudblood can stay exactly where I've put her," he says silkily. "And if you lay a finger on her, do believe me when I say I'll make your pain last a long time, hmm?"

He has not told the others what Hermione is there for, where she is from, what she knows. They have worked out her ancestry for themselves, which is fine by Riddle, since it means they give her a wide berth. Things would be simpler if she were a Pureblood, of course, but she is indispensable either way. He has seen inside her head to what he becomes in fifty years' time, and to how he meets his end. The irony is not lost on him: this girl full of light who has dedicated her life to fighting him is now going to be the unwitting instrument to his success. With her by his side as a sort of personal seer, he need not fear ever making a mistake. No Wand of Destiny, no living Horcruxes, no Knights whatsoever by the name of Snape.

And as an added bonus, Hermione's company is inexhaustibly entertaining.

She has made no attempt to escape. Riddle has cast his protective enchantments around the house robustly enough to make any such attempt laughable, and she must know it. But when he takes her out into the world to make use of her knowledge on some mission or another, her reactions to the people and places she encounters are arbitrary and overwhelming. She seems absurdly fond of a young boy with one enormous, electric-blue magical eye who she glimpses in Hogsmeade, though she tries to hide it lest Riddle should take it into his head to do the boy harm. And the evening they spend recruiting in the Umbridge & McLellan tea shop in Glastonbury is amusing in the extreme. He has never seen her scowl so pronouncedly, even at him.

Then comes the day when he brings his Knights together in the drawing room to take the mark, and he is no longer so amused. The process of imprinting the Dark Mark on their arms could be quick and painless, but he draws it out like a true branding, taking his time to etch flame into flesh. Hermione stands in the corner, her face turned away, flinching at the screams that resound through the house. He wants her to watch. He wants her to get off on it like the rest of them. And yet he suspects that he would be perversely disappointed if she were to begin behaving like all the others. He hates her for making him doubt himself. He has tried, time and again, to bring her under his thumb, but even when captive Hermione is a force of nature. Unmovable. Every time he bites her she bites back. If he begins to punish her now he has an irrational fear that he might not be able to stop. And then where would he be, if he broke the mind of his fragile little seer?

At present Walburga steps away with a clumsy curtsy, muttering, "I'm sorry, please forgive me."

Orion has come to stand in the doorway, and a look of greed has come into his eyes at the prospect of his dear sweet cousin being punished. It is a look Riddle can appreciate, even respect. But suddenly he is beyond irritated with the lot of them and wants nothing more than to curse them all into oblivion.

"Put Thurkell in with Lestrange," he snaps. "I'll pay him a visit tonight to assess."

He sweeps from the room without another word, stopping just long enough to catch the look of despair and abandonment on Abraxas's face. He wonders what it must be like to be so weak, to form foolish attachments, to be so beholden to someone as to allow that look the mar your face.

* * *

February 11th, 1946

He does not expect to find out the answer to his question so violently and completely. But when she is brought up to his chambers bloodied and beaten and struggling for breath, Riddle experiences a moment of hot-cold, clutching, searing panic unlike anything he has felt before, and he knows. Because it is not only that he wants to tear whoever did this to her limb from limb and make them scream and make it fucking _last forever_. In an instant he knows that he is responsible, too, and he is faced with the terrifying realization that he wants to obliterate _himself_ for it.

Yes, he knows how this has happened, without having to ask. It started several months ago when he found Hermione crying in the cellar, curled up against the stone wall with her head cradled in her arms. He felt a flash of disgust at her show of weakness and turned to leave, but she let out an inhuman wail of anguish and he wondered whether she might be ill, so he approached her impatiently.

"What is it?"

"Please l—leave me alone," she hiccoughed.

"How many times do you have to be taught that you do not give orders to me?" he asked in a dangerously quiet voice, but instead of recoiling in fear she wailed even louder. He wanted to slap it out of her. The sound grated on his nerves in an unfamiliar, uncomfortable way.

She pulled something from beneath her robes and tossed it to the ground: a Muggle newspaper.

"I found these last night in a bin when we took Thurkell to Edinburgh. They're old. From months ago."

"Yes, I can see that."

"It's all stories about Auschwitz and death tolls and—and—It just never stops." She looked up at him with a desperate sort of plea in her eyes he could not understand. Had she _known_ any of these dead Muggles?

"You're a time traveler," Riddle pointed out. "Nearly everyone you know is dead."

"Yes," she said emphatically, as if that was the key. "I have _nothing_. Nothing and no one of my own, and I can never go back even though I'd rather go home just for a day and die at the end of it than stay here. And I thought I could at least make a difference but now I'm a fugitive and my best hope of survival is to stay hidden in this godforsaken house with _you_. I have nothing," she repeated, tears streaming down her face.

And what he did then, rather than scoff or leave or shake some sense into her, was kiss her. There was no rationale; he did it simply because he wanted her to be quiet and he wanted her to be content and he wanted _her_. He was surprised when she did not push him away. He was even more surprised by the burst of fire that raced through him at her touch.

Her guttural cry when he took her, the way she clung to him, made him understand what she meant when she said that she had nothing. She was alone in the unfamiliar landscape that was her past—they were perhaps two of the most alone people history had ever known—and so it did not really matter that she hated him. At least she had something to hold on to.

He told himself that she belonged to him now, finally and irrevocably. Nothing changed between them, yet they seemed unable to stop coming back to one another once they had started. She was insatiable—another surprise—but only on her own terms. She never actually denied him. But sometimes when he was frenzied she was cold and distant. On these occasions he would leave her, feeling murderous, and barge into Abraxas's room late in the night to seek satisfaction elsewhere. And Abraxas always knew, but he did not protest; he only looked mournful like his entire being was breaking apart.

That is how Riddle knows, now, who is responsible for the bloodied mess at his feet. Abraxas, and his jealousy.

"Please," Hermione croaks through swollen lips caked with dried blood. "Don't hurt him."

He absolutely cannot fucking fathom how she is standing up for Abraxas at a time like this, except that yes, he can, it is Hermione through and through. He ignores her, kneeling to cast healing charms upon the worst of her injuries. He summons one of the Black family Elves who have been taught to answer his calls even when he is not in the house, and orders the Elf to bring a healing potion.

When she is well enough to sit up he commands, "Explain."

"The hotel was attacked just after you left. Lestrange didn't know. Abraxas did, obviously. They were ex-Aurors, Bulgarian I think. They wanted the gold. The reward for my capture has been raised to one thousand Galleons, considering... one thing and another."

Riddle leaves without another word and finds Abraxas's room. He muffles the sounds of Hermione's distant protests with a silencing charm, and he makes Abraxas pay. For hours on end, until the sun comes up, he makes him pay. It is all pale flesh and sticky pools of blood and chilling screams and _please my Lord I'm sorry oh please Tom please please _and it is not quite satisfying enough, and it is all he can do to bring himself to stop. But Abraxas is talented, and Abraxas is rich, and Abraxas is weak-hearted. All traits Riddle can use to his advantage. So he stops, and bends low to whisper in his ear.

"If you ever do anything like this again, you will beg me for death," he promises.

* * *

IV – _The frailty of genius; it requires an audience._

December 12th, 1945

At the Black wedding the Champagne flows too freely, and in dark corners other illicit substances are added into the mix, until the revelry climbs to toxic levels and Orion and Walburga are practically shagging on the kitchen table and Lestrange beats a House Elf to a bloody pulp and Hermione engages him in a duel and brings him to his knees in thirty seconds flat. Her magic truly is spectacular, even if it seems she does not realize it.

Riddle is tempted to wait and see if she will kill him, but he needs Lestrange for his connections in France, so he steps in and separates them. Lestrange is so drunk that he collapses on the floor in an unconscious heap, and Riddle leaves him there, disgusted. Hermione staggers a little as he leads her away, but she is not very drunk, mostly knackered. His bedroom is closest, and though she has never been inside it before, he takes her there and sits her down on his bed, shutting the door with a meaningful bang.

"Tomorrow I'm taking you out for an important task," he tells her, toying with the folds of her skirt.

She frowns. "I'm not killing anyone. You can't make me. I know how to throw off the Imperius curse. You'll have to kill me first."

"Be quiet. I know very well what you're capable of. We're going to break into the Luxelles hotel in Paris. I have intelligence the landlady might be guarding information about the location of some giant clans in the South."

"I'll be recognized if I go out in the open. Do you want to risk being associated with a wanted fugitive?"

"Are you a witch, or what?" Riddle asks impatiently, and to his dismay her expression twists with momentary anguish at his words. He cannot begin to guess what sort of memory he might have triggered this time.

She sighs and smoothes out her features. "Magical concealment is too easily detected. It'll have to be more than that."

She reaches for a silver letter-opener sitting on his bedside table and he watches in fascination as Hermione hacks and slices at her hair until it is unfashionably short, falling just barely to her jaw line. It is jagged and utterly lacking in femininity and it suits her well. Riddle slides across the bed and runs his hands over the newly exposed curve of her shoulders and her neck, feeling his fingers burn.

The heist is a rousing success. They capture the Luxelles landlady without difficulty and bring her back to Grimmauld Place, where, to Riddle's bemusement, Hermione takes to standing vigil outside her cell in the basement night and day.

"Is she such enlightening company?" he asks her one morning over a quiet tea before another trip abroad. Hermione is reading the _Daily Prophet_, and she refuses to lift her eyes from the pages to look at him.

"She's a very frightened woman, and I won't have her taken advantage of any further."

"_Taken advantage of..._ You really think I'd touch—" he begins, incensed.

"Not you," she replies with—he later realizes—not a moment's hesitation. "But I don't trust Lestrange or Black. Or Thurkell."

"And Abraxas?"

At last her eyes flicker up to his, only for a moment, before returning to a fixed point on the page.

"Why do you do it to him?" she asks quietly.

"Whatever do you mean?"

"You know what I mean. Abraxas cares for you. I used to wonder about him, because he doesn't seem as keen on violence as the rest of them. I knew his grandson in the future, you see, and... Well, never mind. I understand it now. It's very cruel of you."

"You knew his grandson?" Riddle asks sharply.

"Yes," she replies evenly, refusing to indulge him by revealing _how_ exactly she has known this future Malfoy. "Why do you do it to him?"

He reaches over to trace one finger slowly down her back, repressing a smirk as she shivers involuntarily.

"You tell me," he says. She is silent for some time.

"There's a double agent in this house," she says at last, turning a page of the _Prophet_ with an idle flick.

* * *

May 1st, 1946

He has ducked into the little alcove off the bar, dragging the frightened boy by the collar.

"About that file you put together for me, Thurkell..."

"All factual, my Lord," says Thurkell at once, looking anxious. "I double-checked with each of my sources."

"Indeed," Riddle reassures him. "Fine work. I do wonder how you came by the information about the Department of Mysteries."

"I had an uncle who used to work for the Department. He confirmed all the procedures."

"And have you told anyone else of your findings?"

Thurkell shakes his head slowly, and the contents of the file flash through Riddle's head. Hermione has been in contact with the Ministry (using the House Elves to sneak away, for fuck's sake, how had he not thought of that?) trying to barter a deal to get out of her extradition charges. To make herself disappear. All at once the conversation they had a few weeks ago makes senses.

"I can't keep doing this," she told him as he made to lace their fingers together and pin her arms above her head.

"Don't be tedious."

"No, not _this_. I mean all of it. Following you abroad. Risking arrest. At first I thought it was all meant to happen, because those are the principles of time travel. The future as I know it wouldn't be what it is if I wasn't here now. Except that I've become sort of infamous, I've made the newspapers countless times, and... I don't remember _ever _reading anything about myself. I have no idea what the consequences might be. This is becoming really dangerous."

"You've been under Polyjuice potion the last three times we've left London," he pointed out. It did not seem to be what she wanted to hear.

"It doesn't matter. Once a rumor gets started there's no stopping it, I learned that when I was fifteen. The wizarding world has eyes everywhere. It's only a matter of time before Dumbledore loses patience and comes looking for me, or any number of other people."

"Then you'll stay here."

"I'm not going to waste away in hiding for the rest of my life doing nothing worthwhile."

"We'll see."

Yes, it would be a shame to waste her talents on obscurity. But _this_... this means that she plans to erase her identity entirely. To disappear into the bowels of the Department of Mysteries and never reappear.

It also means that she is the double-agent, leaking information to Unspeakables about God knows what. She confessed this to him the night before, but he had not really decided what to do about it. It makes a startling amount of sense. She was the one who first alerted him to the presence of a mole in their midst, no doubt to throw him off her trail. A very clever move, and thus entirely characteristic of her. She wanted him to think it was Lestrange...

And now at last he knows what he intends to do about it.

Sooner or later this betrayal will leak. The Knights will get it out of Thurkell one way or another. And there will be no way to keep Hermione alive then, no justification.

"Hmm. So you've told no one about this at all?" Riddle probes into Thurkell's mind to confirm the truth.

Thurkell looks scared as he says, "N—no, my Lord."

"Ah." Riddle offers him a cold smile. It is a shame, really. Thurkell has done good work.

He raises his wand.

"_Avada Kedavra._"

And Thurkell falls dead to the floor.

* * *

January 25th, 1946

They are standing back to back, dueling a room full of French wizards. They have been separated from Black and Thurkell and Abraxas, and only Lestrange remains, taking on two in the corner to Riddle and Hermione's four apiece. They make relatively short work of taking down their opponents. Riddle notices that Hermione never once strikes to kill. He is irritated and amused in equal measure.

After their victory Lestrange runs off to find Abraxas, and Riddle and Hermione stand in the midst of the wreckage of battle, breathing hard. And then he is laughing and she is solemn, and he is fucking her against a stone pillar and it is better than magic and better than immortality and he thinks he can never stop, never in a million years. But as he collapses against her he utters the words that he knows, somehow, he should not speak aloud.

She goes very still and bites her lip, looking pained and young and achingly lovely in the half-light. But she is dead behind the eyes.

"What?" he asks brusquely, masking panic with annoyance.

"I'm not going to call you that."

"_Don't_ be tedious. Two words. And they're true—"

"You're _not_ my Lord, Tom. I won't say it."

He lifts his hand as if to shake her, to throttle her, and she closes her eyes. It stops him in his tracks.

"_What?_" he repeats, the same sense of steely rage that normally accompanies an Unforgivable curse building inside him.

"Sometimes I think I almost forget who you are."

Somehow he cannot bear to hear any more. He leaves her there and Disapparates, reappearing in his hotel room and tearing the place apart until it is nothing more than a charred wreck. He hears Abraxas knocking but ignores it, waiting for him to go away. If Abraxas comes in, he'll probably kill him.

The only thing in the room to have escaped his wrath appears to be a scrap of newspaper. Half a singed headline jumps out at him above a photograph of a burning building.

_... Home of Renowned Magical Inventor Destroyed as Crime Spree hits Eastern coastline._

News of his theft has spread remarkably fast. No matter. He _needed_ that inventor's work to safeguard his current Horcruxes. Progress at Borgin and Burke's has been maddeningly slow.

He scoops up the article with the point of his wand and levitates it before his eyes, going very still. He knows how to read between the lines. From all the reporter's talks about "public outcry" and other such rubbish... someone very close to the inventor is a Person of Influence. And somehow, likely through ministerial intervention, some brilliant person has decided to link these crimes to "German Fugitive" Romilda Vane. A small, grainy photograph of Hermione blinks of at him beneath the picture of the burning house.

There will be retaliation.

* * *

March 15th, 1946

"Who is rallying these forces?" Riddle asks again in his lowest, most dangerous voice, sweeping his wand through the air and drawing another shriek from the girl at his feet. Thunder rumbles outside, rain lashes at the windows. In the brief instant when lightning flashes Riddle glimpses his reflection in a window opposite. His hair has grown almost to his shoulders and his cheeks have hollowed out, but more importantly, not for the first time, he thinks he catches a flash of red in his eyes.

"I d—don't know, I swear, _I swear!_" the girl cries, shivering and hugging herself. Riddle steps away before she can begin sniveling on his shoes. The entire day has been an exercise in futility: the girl knows nothing about the mob that recently accosted Walburga and Abraxas in Islington.

Another dead end. He glances at Black, who is drumming his fingers greedily against his wand. Lestrange is about to have at the girl. Riddle feels vaguely put off at having such a degenerate in his employ, but this is the way of war and he knows the value of keeping his Knights happy. Then lightning flashes and all of a sudden the girl's features are thrown into sharp relief. For a moment she looks exactly like Hermione, down to the last detail—lips eyelashes freckles cheekbones—and a powerful surge of nausea grips Riddle. He stumbles out the door into the storm, numb to the rain pounding at his face.

Lightning strikes dangerously close to his feet as he wanders the wooded yard of the girl's country house, and again, and again. He is a lightning rod, a magnet for nature's wrath. And rightly so. Someday all that is the sky and the earth around him will _belong_ to him.

He fires a series of killing curses at the sky, to no effect. When at last some of his rage has drained away he returns to the house, stupefies Lestrange and Black, and drags them back to London, refusing to offer an explanation. He is owed nothing less than _unquestioning_ servitude, after all.

The next day he overhears a conversation between Hermione and Abraxas.

"They didn't find anything in the countryside, did they?" Hermione asks, and Riddle lingers in the shadows, listening in.

"What's it to you, Mudblood?" Abraxas snaps.

"Come on, now. You don't really care all that much about blood, do you? You do know Tom is a Half-blood?"

"He is a descendant of Salazar Slytherin, of the noblest blood there is."

"Yes, and his father was a small-time Muggle squire in Little Hangleton."

"Don't you dare—"

"We're going to have to learn to get along, Malfoy. The rumors of retaliation for that inventor are getting louder. History is changing. People are coming for us, and we'll have to stand together whether you like it or not."

"You're a fucking prisoner here, what do you care about standing together?" Abraxas pauses, then scoffs. "Oh, _don't_ tell me you're in _love_ with him."

"No," says Hermione very quickly in a sharp tone.

She turns her back on him, facing the drawing room fireplace. Abraxas watches her for a long time.

"You're nothing," he hisses before leaving. "_Nothing._"

Hermione waits until his footsteps have faded away before leaning against the mantelpiece for support, burying her head in her hands.

* * *

May 1st, 1946

Riddle blasts the barricade open with a spell that sets the entire room ablaze. Then, with a final look back at Hermione, he walks leisurely out into the crowd that is chanting for his death. And he smiles.

They are family members, friends, colleagues of the inventor from whom he stole the Mokeskin fibre safe for his ring. Funny how a whole string of murders can go unnoticed while one small step can unexpectedly mobilize an army. There are at least four dozen witches and wizards here, bathed in cursed light, their faces filled with rage.

He dives eagerly into the fray, slashing left and right with his wand and bringing down all in his path. In the first ten seconds he has eliminated five of them, and the Knights five more, and Hermione three of her own. These people are determined but not organized. Fools, all.

The one in charge, a man who bears a striking resemblance to the girl in the country house—a father or an uncle, perhaps—steps forth with what looks like a magical crossbow that is spewing tendrils of dark flame. Easy enough to deduce its purpose: frozen Fiendfyre, one of the world's rarest properties. Now, this could be interesting.

Riddle conjures a large metal shield upon which three separate curses are rebounded onto their originators. Black and Abraxas have a whole group rounded up and tied together, and Hermione is dueling four at once. She is magnificent. Riddle smiles as he twirls his wand through the air, creating a haze of brilliant purple light that reaches out to swallow up the man with the crossbow, who begins to scream and claw at his face in agony, who chokes and begs and—

"_Tom!_"

A diversion. Too late. As Riddle turns his assailant is already casting the curse. Abraxas launches himself across the room and blocks the spell from hitting Riddle, yelping as it strikes his chest and crumbling to the ground. His limbs spasm and his eyes roll back in his head. Riddle recognizes the curse well. If untreated, Abraxas will be dead within three minutes.

Sighing harshly, Riddle casts a viciously powerful shield charm around himself and Abraxas and leans forward to begin casting counter-charms. Swish, jab, left, up, left, down. The silvery eyes flutter closed and Abraxas lies on the stone floor, pulse beating steadily against his neck.

He jumps lithely to his feet and sees with satisfaction that Lestrange has stricken down a whole string of attackers surrounding his shield charm. Nearly half their opponents are down already...

She screams.

His blood freezes in his veins.

He turns in a semi-circle as if in slow motion, his eyes falling upon her broken form sprawled across the floor. A trickle of blood drips from the corner of her mouth. Her eyes stare, unseeing, at the ceiling.

Riddle does not even register the curse that bursts out of him with a cataclysmic bang, sending shockwaves across the room. Eleven duelers fall down dead, friend or foe he does not care. The rest run off with panicked looks over their shoulders.

Her gaze is glassy, empty. None of the sharp brilliance he remembers.

"Fitting end for a Mudblood, don't you think?" asks Lestrange with forced lightness, eyeing Riddle nervously. He steps over a corpse as he approaches. Zeller. Good.

"This isn't Hermione," Riddle says quietly.

"Er... beg pardon, my Lord?"

To hell with it, he can Obliviate him later. "She only needed a moment's distraction to fake her death. She's gone now. Whoever this scum was... they were already dying. Nothing to be done to save them, or she would have done it. And she'll have fed them Polyjuice potion moments before their death, so we'll never know who."

"Shall we go after the Mudblood, then?" asks Black gruffly, joining them. "She was useful to you in some way, my Lord?"

"She won't surface again."

Riddle turns, kicking a body aside, and walks away, leaving a ringing silence behind him.

* * *

V - _We will never be here again._

May 1st, 1949

Three years pass. His ranks swell. His Horcruxes sit under the best protection known to wizardkind. His power grows.

He comes across a lecherous old hag called Hepzibah Smith at Borgin and Burke's, whose ancestry promises treasures untold. And oh, she does not disappoint. He kills her and takes her heirlooms, which are, in truth, _his_ birthright. He catches a glimpse of himself in a looking glass again as he strikes the old hag down, and he sees the flash of red in his eyes quite clearly. And for a moment he sees Hermione's face looming behind his.

He begins to dream of her, incandescent, visceral dreams that wake him panting and yelling in the night. Happiness overtakes him at his successes, his never-ending victories, but it is a brittle sort of happiness that makes him inexplicably uncomfortable and _nervous_, very nervous. Why, he asks himself? Why isn't it quite enough?

It is. _It is._ Power is enough, it is everything.

He does not touch Abraxas again, and the latter sinks slowly into the trenches of his own bitterness. Lestrange makes a terrific lieutenant. Riddle hates him more every day.

The House of Black is filled with venom and life and manic zeal. Cold malevolent statues with the faces of people. The perfect sentinels.

Three years to the day following her disappearance, there is a knock on the door in the hour before sunrise. His Knights are sleeping in the drawing room in a disorderly drunken heap, so Riddle answers the door himself. And there she stands.

His brain grinds to a halt.

"Tom," she says.

Kill her. Tear her clothes off and take her against the pavement in broad daylight. Pretend she is not there.

"Yes," he says.

"You look..." She trails off, her eyes roaming eagerly over his features. She herself looks hardened. She is thinner and her hair is even shorter than before and the skin under her eyes looks bruised. Yet she seems pleased; her gaze is as full of light as ever. There is a small beaded bag in her left hand, from which radiates an eerie pale blue light.

"_Apparatus paradoxum enutriet,_" Hermione says, following his gaze. "I've been developing it for some time, in the Department."

Riddle wracks his brain, but to his dismay can come up with no information whatsoever about the device she has named.

"A paradox machine, in simple terms," she explains.

"What—?" The weight of the past rises between them and he feels he can only stare at her.

Her mouth takes on a crooked slant that is not quite a smile. "Magic can draw its power from a number of sources. Ancient buildings, celestial events... You know what today is, don't you?"

"Ah."

"Walpurgis Night." Hermione's voice is melodious, rich, a whisper from the past. He cannot think. His mind is filled up with the memory of her sighs while he was inside her. "Can I come in?" she asks.

He reaches out and grasps her jaw none too gently. "Why?"

"There's something I'd like to try. A sort of... project." She smiles in earnest now, looking rueful and waving the little bag. "And it seems I'm something of a fugitive again. The Ministry doesn't know I have this."

Riddle grabs for the bag but she pulls it back.

"Can I come in?" she repeats.

Riddle drops his hold on her and pauses, his eyes boring into hers. Then he steps back to let her through the door.

* * *

**A/N:** I know it's in brazen defiance of logic but, you know... wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey. The epigraphs to each section, in order, are ganked from: The Queen (JKR); "Kings of the Wild Frontier" by Adam & the Ants; "Ash Tree Lane" by Mrs Mr; BBC Sherlock; and "The Illiad" by Homer. Thank you for reading, and do please drop me a line if you enjoyed it. Cheers!


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